Mac Mini

I have kept my 2010 Mac Mini going for the past 8 years with RAM and SSD bumps while frequently regretting not getting a 2012 quad core 3-5 years ago. Who would have predicted that Apple would have released peak Mac Mini in 2012? It is really quite bizarre.

This may be the“Summer of the Mac” with MBPs updated last month (“quiet keyboards”) and MBAs rumored to come in October. I do like my MBA but I want a home server for backups, Plex, Chronosync, etc. If Apple doesn’t upgrade the Mac Mini in October (as is rumored) I’ll probably spin up an Intel NUC and be done with it.

Synology DS418 Play vs 2010 Mac Mini with DAS via Firewire 800

Testing a Synology DS418 Play with a desire to improve on my 2010 Mac Mini Core 2 Duo (8 GB ram) with OWC drive directly attached via old Firewire 800 for Plex server (which is currently on the Mac Mini). The Synology has an Intel Celeron J3355 dual core CPU with 2 gb RAM. The Geekbench results for these two processors is nearly the same at 1500 single core and 2700 multicore. However, an mpg opens 18% faster from the Mac Mini attached storage over SMB via the network than the same file opened from the Synology. Bottom line for me is that the DS418 Play may be worse than the 2010 Mac Mini setup. Maybe the ram is the difference? Also, I realized that I’d much rather work with MacOS for a“server” than the Linux on Synology. I’m not feeling like this improves my media setup and may send back the Synology and look to upgrade the Mac Mini with DAS over Thunderbolt.

Exploring Tomoe River paper notebooks more.

Exploring Tomoe River paper notebooks more. Ordered a Hobonichi Techo for 2018 but it did not fit my needs/flows. Great paper, though. Now have a Namani Cafe Note A6 in hand which will follow my Stalogy 365 as a custom, personal notebook with my status boards.

Hating apps

I’ve moved all of my productivity away from apps after having grown tired of all of them.

In general I have started to value a global view of my life and have come to realize that apps silo away information and“hide” it from view without easy integration. Sure, there are the widgets of Notification Center but they only show limited snapshots of the data in apps.